In the middle of the lake, a lone ball of wrapped roots floated. The roots were utterly blackened, crossed with molten streaks and leeching charcoal into the water. The ball unraveled, the roots uncoiling and slackening before falling apart and into the depths below.

Li emerged. As he gazed at the black burn marks on his arm, he wondered whether this was the first time he had taken real damage in the boundaries of this physical world. Of course, nothing too serious, and, if he was in his regular form, he would have regenerated it off in a minute at most.

'You okay?' thought Li to the phylactery still encased in his pocket. He had not needed to encase himself in [Ironbark Shell] to defend against the explosion, but he was worried that Ven'thur's core would not have survived.

'I am as fine as a disembodied soul can be,' came Ven'thur's cool and crisp voice. 'Still, that force just now – it was absolutely marvelous. Though now that I have experienced true power, it still feels disappointingly mundane in comparison.'

'Well, it still isn't something you see every day,' said Li. He looked up, making out the slight glimmer of the moonlit water's surface. The explosion and the ensuing shockwave had knocked him almost halfway up the entire depth of the lake. It made his trip to the surface a little shorter, at least.

Li pushed his legs down and generated force to propel him upwards like a torpedo, hydraulic waves of water gathering around his face like the underwater version of a sonic boom cone. He crashed through the lake's surface and sailed into the air before landing on the docks, patters of water dripping from his drenched hair and clothes.

Immediately, Li realized the shockwave had traveled all the way to the surface. It had caused a small-scale tsunami of a sort, pushing waves outwards and drenching the docks and even the street nearby. Many of the smalling fishermen's boats had capsized, and there were a few floundering fish that had been blown up to the surface by the blast. 

Li knew that this would draw attention. He did not waste time before he sunk down into one of the shadier and more shadowed alleyways near the docks, but not before he ran into a familiar face.

"Iona? What're you doing here?" said Li as he put his back near the alleyway wall to get himself out of sight from the docks.

Iona followed suit, drawing near him. She was dressed in her typical brown robes, and from them wafted the gentle, earthy smell of medicinal herbs and cleansing alcohol. Strange, considering the strong, almost noxious fumes of the herbalist stand were what usually clung to her. She looked alright, for the most part, if a little tired as she always did with those permanent dark circles under her eyes. 

"I was seeking you," said Iona. Her voice held an urgency to it that was highly uncharacteristic of her usual collected self. She glanced to the burns on his arm and drew it closer to her. "And wounds? On your person? I must heal them immediately."

She used her other hand to reach into her pocket, probably to fish out a healing herb. Li shook his head.

"It's fine." He waved his hand over his injury, and it healed immediately. "It's not even a scratch."

"Still, I am sorry that I know little of the restorative arts other than herbalism." She looked down, ashamed. "As an aspect of forest wildfires, my magic is not quite suited to restoration."

"No need to be sorry about something I didn't need." Li patted Iona's shoulder. "Now come on, tell me what you needed me for."

"I felt something was amiss this night. For several nights, I have felt a foul omen brewing in the shadows. I have felt the land itself amiss, though in what way, my dulled spiritual senses cannot perceive. And now, I know that my premonitions have come true."

"The land itself?" Li took note of how he had realized recently that Iona was perhaps a bit paler, a bit weaker, and he found himself understanding that her condition was likely related to this incident. 

"It is hard to explain." Iona shivered involuntarily. "But I felt perhaps there was something strange, something malevolent lurking within the woods."

"Well, there's certainly something malevolent out here now," said Li. "You know, you could have told me earlier."

"I am here to serve," said Iona as she lowered her head. "When you leave the stall, I understand it is my duty to manage it in your absence. I do not question where you have gone or what you do, for your will is superior and peerless. And this…this premonition was so faint that I knew not what it was. Certainly, I did not think it worthy enough to bring to your presence." 

"Look-," Li grabbed Iona's shoulders with both hands and looked at her directly. She looked away. "Look at me." When he saw her eyes meet his with fear, he said, "Right now, I don't know what I am, but I'm no god. I know I've told you this before, but I recognize how hard it must be for you to unwind a hundred years of conditioning to always obey and never question. I'll be the first to admit that even though I'm damn near all powerful, I'm not omnipotent, nor am I omniscient. Don't be afraid to assume I'll need help even when I'm not asking you directly."

Iona nodded, and Li let go. "So, how'd you know I was here? Did you sense the explosion?"

"I did, but I was searching for you before then."

Li raised a brow. "Before then? Did something happen?"

Iona nodded solemnly. "I spend my nights tending to the farmers healing needs, and tonight I found one of the families butchered. That is why I sought for you."

Li did not waste any time. "Lead me there." 

It did not take more than five minutes to get to the site of the crime. Li and Iona came upon an isolated little shop that sold wood carvings. The glass display had been shattered and the wooden horses, boats, and knights that would have stood vigil on it lay scattered amidst the shards of glass, their forms chipped and broken.

The first thing Li noticed was that several black armored knights stood watch over the area. Alexei's vampire knights.

"Were they here before?" said Li. 

Iona shook her head. "However, amidst the bodies of the family, there were two of those vampires lying slain. That would explain their presence."

Li went up to one of the vampire knights. He bowed his head in recognition of Li.

"What's happening here?" demanded Li.

"The good count has kept watch over your movements and the proceedings of the case. He thought it wise to post guard over the farmers' residences. Discretely, of course. Those of our order that guarded these homes were shifted into forms unnoticeable such as mist or bats."

"Give the count my thanks for his foresight. But it looks like it wasn't enough. How are the other residences?"

The knight nodded. "They are fine. The attacker came and went in a flash, but my fellow brothers did not leave without a fight. They fought and were slain, but they must surely have given the coward a fight to remember, for she has not reared her head again."

Li noted the attacker was a woman which, considering he strongly suspected the golem as the culprit, meant that the thing took on a woman's form. "Tell your brethren to take all the farmers and move them to Alexei's estate. Make room for them, use the underground pathways if you have to. Guard them with your lives."

The knight put a gauntleted hand over his breastplate. "Understood, great one. I will relay the orders without delay." 

Li stepped into the shop and Iona went ahead leading the way. She hopped over a counter and into a back room where five bodies lay. They lay scattered in neat halves across the bloodied and dark floor. Torn in half like the legends of the Specter told. 

Three of the bodies belonged to a human man, woman, and young boy. Two were the large and athletic builds of vampire knights. All five had been cut down with such extreme precision and quickness that the expressions they before right before death were still stricken across their faces.

The human family held mundane, somewhat sleepy expressions. They quite literally did not know they had been killed. A mercy – they did not suffer. The vampire knights had on fang bared grimaces indicating they were ready to fight, but their swords were not even drawn. They had been stricken down before they even knew what hit them. 

There was no struggle here. This was a complete slaughter. This further reinforced to Li that this was the golem's doing. If she had the capacity to set up an explosion of a caliber that it could do even a small amount of damage to Li, then vampire knights, though a fierce some fighting force in Soleil, would be absolutely nothing to her. 

And yet she had not finished the job with the other farming households. If the goal was to eliminate all witnesses, then that would have been the natural order of things, and no vampire knight would have stopped her. 

Was there something stopping her? Or perhaps she was going after another target? 

Regardless, with how far things had escalated, Li was not going to end this without spilling blood.